Mitsui Garden Hotel Kyoto Shijo
三井ガーデンホテル京都四条
Does Mitsui Garden Hotel Kyoto Shijo allow tattoos? Yes!
The bath is on the ground floor and styled after the Gion Matsuri: a checkerboard garden outside the glass and the festival’s lanterns to look at from the water.
Nothing to cover. The bath page says the hotel has lifted its restriction on body art and tattoos, part of the Mitsui Garden change of March 1, 2026.
The bath
The garden outside the glass is laid out in ichimatsu, the checkerboard of traditional Japanese weaving, and after dark lanterns and stone toro light the maples and other seasonal planting: the hotel’s idea is the lights of the Gion Matsuri at night. In the hotel’s photo the tub is a long tiled pool running the width of the window, fed from a stone spout at one end, with a glass door onto the gravel. The page names no hot spring and lists no sauna.
Outside the changing rooms is a rest area styled as a festival lane, the “omatsuri koji”, hung with rows of paper lanterns, with wooden cube seats and benches facing a small lit rock garden. The hotel suggests it as a place to meet up after bathing.
Free to guests, 3 p.m. to 9 a.m. Shampoo, conditioner, body soap, cotton swabs and hair dryers are there; towels aren’t, so bring the ones from your room. Room nightwear and slippers are fine, and the hotel warns that some hours are very crowded.
The hotel
Two buildings, a main wing and an annex, with rooms on a “mai” (dance) theme: a wall behind the bed modeled on the way a kimono is worn, a headboard like an obi, and an accent color taken from ukiyo-e prints of the Gion Matsuri floats, red in the main wing and green in the annex. Rooms keep the bath, toilet and basin separate. Breakfast at KOZUE is a Japanese and Western buffet with obanzai (Kyoto home-style dishes), ¥2,530.
Good to know
- Children seven and over use their own gender’s side, under Kyoto city rules.
Getting there
Shijo STN · Karasuma subway line
About 6 minutes from exit 2.
Kyoto Station is on the Tokaido Shinkansen. From there, city bus 50 from stop B2 stops at the door, Shijo Nishinotoin, the seventh stop. Hankyu Karasuma Station is also 6 minutes, from exit 26.
Where it is
- Shinkansen tickets Seats between any two stations, booked by date.
- JR Kansai Wide Area Pass ¥12,000 · 5 days Worth it if you’re riding out to Kinosaki or Shirahama and back.
- Kyoto and Nara in a day The Arashiyama scenic railway, Fushimi Inari’s thousand gates and the deer of Nara Park, from Osaka or Kyoto.
- Funaoka Onsen bathhouse visit with a guide A guide takes you into Funaoka Onsen, Kyoto’s 1920s bathhouse, and the cafe in a former bathhouse nearby. Klook lists it as tattoo-friendly, and admission is included.
- Japan Rail Pass from ¥53,000 · 7, 14 or 21 days For a trip that takes in several regions by Shinkansen and JR lines.
Part of a group-wide policy change
This is one of 24 bath-equipped properties run by Mitsui Fudosan Hotel Management, which abolished its tattoo rule across all of them on March 1, 2026. The whole picture on Mitsui Garden, and every Mitsui Garden listing on this site →
What happens when you arrive
Check in and go to the bath. There's no seal to buy and nothing to mention at the front desk.
How we know
Confirmed from official site (property bath page read directly)
当ホテルではボディアート・タトゥ等の受入制限を撤廃しております。
The operator’s own wording. Show it if anyone asks.
Best for: travelers who want central Kyoto with nothing to think about at the bath door
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